Hypocrite
by talking-eye
Summary: Richard Webber is not a hypocrite. Alex Karev is not a hypocrite. Or are they? A CristinaBurke relevant piece. Let me know what you think.
1. Richard

Hypocrite

In front of him, they call him Chief. Behind the nursing station and the walls of the locker room, he is the Hypocrite with a capital H.

How could he not know this? He knows his behaviors are full of contradictions. That isn't news to him. Ellis Grey repeatedly accused him of that many years ago. But Richard Webber refuses to believe he is in fact a hypocrite. He wishes someone could understand how much he cares.

Naturally, he cares about his top-notched surgeons Preston Burke and Derek Shepherd because they are money-making machines. That said, he also cares about them more than as the Chief. He sees a bit of himself in both men—the workaholic who puts work in front of everything else in Preston, and the not-so-innocent victim of the Greys in Derek.

Grey. Pondering on this last name always makes him self-conscious. He cares about Meredith and Ellis Grey after all these years. On the very first night at the mixer when he saw the blonde intern, he knew he would take every measure to protect and mentor the girl, giving her what her mother did not get. Meredith is like his surrogate child in a sense, for Richard Webber was too obsessed with work that he never had a child of his own.

The thought of child-bearing is painful. It reminds him of how horrible a person he was. The day when he forced Preston to operate on Ellis Grey was the day Cristina lost her child. How sad it must have been to lose a child.

The irony is that Addison is also Richard's academic offspring. He was her mentor. She always listened to him. When he found out Derek was stuck between these two young women, Richard Webber had a hard time. Whether from the financial or moral point of view, there is no way for him to take side.

In the end, he did not completely dismiss the "scandal" between Meredith Grey and Derek Sheppard, yet he was there to pat Addison's shoulder as she went through a complete melt-down. Who said being the Chief is easy?

Being a husband is worse, however, because he is one of the worst husbands—emotionally uninvolved, yet being in complete denial of it. Now that Adele has finally made up her mind to leave him, he still isn't ready to acknowledge how their marriage ceased to exist a long time ago. Why does he even bother to ask her to wait when he does not really desire her?

Perhaps, behind this face of a hypocrite there hides a vulnerable creature, one who has done so many things that have removed him from feeling guilty, and yet can't quite figure out why every decision seems so wrong and disturbing.

He has good intentions when he tries to lighten the load of his favorite resident, but Miranda Bailey, as well as everyone else, sees that as a move by a patriarch who belittles the ability of a woman.

He sent all the kids away from the hospital when his beloved niece fell ill, not wanting the rhythm of the hospital and the welfare of other patients to be at stake.

He supported Derek's decision to bring Cristina into Preston's surgery room, thinking she would help him stay focused and facilitate the procedure.

Good intentions are not enough.

What hurt the most wasn't when he left Ellis Grey many years ago by the Merry-Go-Round, or when he saw her brought into the hospital senile and fragile, or even when Adele decides to give up.

What hurt the most was when Cristina Yang, the toughest and one of the most ambitious interns in years broke down in front of him, claiming how she wanted to be like him, begging to have her edge back. He wasn't sure if he liked how he was; he wasn't sure if he was half as human as his intern.

What hurt the most was when he had to send Callie Torres away from her little cave in the basement, when she blatantly pointed out that he too was living in the hospital, alone.

Did he envision becoming who he now has become when he first started out as an intern at Seattle Grace 30 years ago? What has he gained? What has he lost?

Maybe he really is nothing more than a hypocrite, but tonight, as he sits in his office alone, he can't help but wonder if things could have been different had he tried harder.


	2. Alex

A/N: It is my first Alex-centered writing, and essentially I'm trying to bring out things about Cristina and Burke. Pardon me if it seems out of character. I would love to hear from you.

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Ch.2

Nobody called him a hypocrite. In fact, nobody called Alex Karev any names before Cristina Yang came up with the infamous "Evil Spawn". 

Alex did not see himself as a hypocrite. True, he did not tell George that he was the one who gave syphilis to Nurse Olivia as he laughed at poor Bambi's body part. True, he did not tell Izzie he was going out with other women before her. But surely there were a few things in life that one could keep to himself without being called a hypocrite?

Perhaps he just didn't know how to spit things out when it came to love and emotions in general. It was easy to be the slightly sardonic joker, it was even easier to take action and punch a few people when necessary. Alex was a wrestler, a doer, just like Yang. The two of them might be fighting all the time, but they had the most in common.

Saying what he actually meant was much harder. What good was there to open his heart and be vulnerable? Didn't they say that action speak louder than words?

Alex never told Izzie he loved her, but he heard that Yang never said that to Dr. Burke either. And they were a couple, an actually dating couple who lived together. When Izzie was watching over one of the premies overnight, Alex checked up on her. Not a lot of people knew it, just as not a lot of people saw Yang sneaking in and out of Dr. Burke's room after he was shot.

When Izzie was completely broken by the death of Denny Duquette, Alex did not go and talk to her in Meredith's house, but he was the one who forced Bailey to talk the girl back to the program. Yang was not spending a lot of time by Dr. Burke's side after the shooting, but she was the one who discussed with Sheppard about rehabilitation and doing additional research in the basement while her boyfriend was enjoying his role as his Mama's little prince.

In fact, if Alex had to nominate hypocrites in the love department, he would pick Dr. Burke. He, of all men, should have known the boundary between his personal life and work, because he was the self-righteous workaholic cardiothoracic surgeon.

Instead, look at what Burke did to his intern girlfriend. He punished her for falling asleep during sex by not allowing her to join the organ harvest trip. He wrongfully questioned another resident's judgment because he was putting his boyfriend hat over his surgeon hat; yet, in the end, he forced Yang to apologize while he himself stayed aloof, only because he was the attending and attendings were not supposed to apologize.

Although Cristina Yang was spiteful and she always called him names, Alex had more respect for her than others. If anyone was to compete with him for being honest, he would win any day, or at least he and Yang would be sharing the title. They were the real doctors. They would not conceal anything from their patients.

Alex never hid from his patients the fact that he hated physical contact as much as Yang did. It still made him proud when thinking of how he beat Cristina Yang on the first day by a tenth of a second in breaking good news to patients without being hugged.

When he knew his lung-cancer patient was dying, he stepped up to tell the mother and daughter to deal with it instead of shying away from the ugly realities of life. Dr. Burke was the one who reprimanded him for doing so. To Alex, Burke was, in that regard, the hypocrite.

Alex thought he was an honest man, with the best interest of his patients in mind. When he made a mistake, he wracked his brain to look for a solution. He actually found a way to save Dr. Sheppard's over-hydrated patient. It was Derek Sheppard who refused to operate on the guy. Why did Sheppard think that sharing his personal experience of killing a patient would make him appear as a genuinely concerned mentor? In any case, Sheppard looked bad on Alex's hypocrite rating scale.

Some day, people might start to call him a hypocrite. Alex knew it, although he wouldn't have cared less if he did get labeled that way. The price of being judgmental was to be judged. When Yang passed harsh comments on everyone and everything at the hospital, she should have known that one day someone would come up to her and give her a merciless verdict the way how Burke's Mama did.

Alex knew people were going to gossip about his sexual encounter with the chocolate-cake lady at Joe's the other night. They would question him for being in love with Izzie while sleeping with someone else. He knew Joe was disgusted to see him sleeping with a woman almost twice his age and was clearly not that appealing to him.

They all missed the point. If making a patient happy could prompt her to go back and fight for her life, why wasn't it worth a try? If stripping in front of Burke would brighten up his day, why should they punish Yang for her behavior?

Of course, it was probably also gratifying for the two of them, but being selfish did not mean they were hypocrites. Besides, they were not only selfish. They actually cared. Perhaps, they even cared a lot more than others did. 

Alex was not a hypocrite, neither was Yang.


End file.
